With the recent enhancement of information security protection, the progress in the technical development relating to biometric authentication has been remarkable. The biometric authentication is a technique that distinguishes a certain individual from other individuals based on a determination as to whether the biometric information which is acquired from an inspection targeted individual matches prestored biometric information. For example, there are a method of identifying an individual based on the iris of a human pupil, a method of identifying an individual based on the vein pattern of a human finger or the like, a method of identifying an individual based on the fingerprint pattern of a finger, and so on.
In accordance with such a background, research and development are being vigorously made on a biometric information acquisition apparatus and a biometric authentication apparatus including the same. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique for authentication based on a plurality of images obtained sequentially in chronological order. Further, Patent Literature 2 discloses an image pickup apparatus which is used for the biometric authentication. In this image pickup apparatus, a light source (100), a support (300), and an image authentication unit (200) are stacked on top of each other, thereby reducing the size of the image pickup apparatus.